Ricochet
by Villanelle
Summary: Yes, another Jesse fic from me. ;) She's slowly slipping away, and Jesse is hit with a tumult of emotions he doesn't understand.


Title: Ricochet  
Author: Nights  
Paring: Too many to mention. Nothing too definite, though. 

E-mail address for feedback: ochretones@yahoo.com

Disclaimers: Mutant X is the property of Tribune Entertainment, and maybe even Marvel Entertainment. The characters and universe of Mutant X are being used by this author for entertainment purposes only, without any possibility of making money

Notes: I was in the middle of working on a vignette describing Jesse's feelings on Shalimar's impending relationship with Brennan in the series, but then I read "Flightless" by Jessica S, and found myself basing a lot of Jesse's feelings from the abovementioned fic. I had a chat with the author at AIM and got her approval to make this a sort of follow-up to "Flightless". A million thanks to her for the approval, and also for the beta. ^_^ Hope this is a good enough as a follow-up. Its tough to follow Jessica's footsteps. ;) 

Important Note: Please read "Flightless" first before reading anything here, or else you won't be able to understand everything. Go. *push*

Summary: She's slowly slipping away, and Jesse is hit with a tumult of emotions he doesn't understand.

He never had a way with words. He knew that for sure. It was the same in almost every conversation he had everyday: him the listener, the men in his life, the speaker. He was accustomed to nodding his head, listening intently with the occasional yet well-punctuated murmur of affirmation.

It was Shalimar who turned the tables around, though, whose stare always, always willed him to speak, or at least, convey his feelings with the slightest of gestures. A raise of an eyebrow, a slight nod of the head, the arching of a lip. And she always responded with the most intimate contact. A squeeze on the shoulder, a pat on the head, a simple look of concern.

But everything seemed to have changed at his arrival. Slowly, the slightest of gestures, the most intimate of contact lessened by varying degrees until he could swear that there was nothing left.

It was like she was pulling away and even though he was holding onto her, she was willingly letting his hand go.

*******************

But with Emma, everything was different--_everything_. From the moment his eyes landed on her he knew immediately that he could trust her, from the time he had stepped in front of her, massed himself and protected her seemingly fragile body from the barrage of bullets honing in on her chest, hoping to turn it as crimson as her dress.

Bullets, he knew, slice through the air with a speed of 60 kilometers per hour, usually making a hissing sound as they hit him and collapsed in a dozen fragments of silver onto the hardness his chest had transformed itself onto. He had long learned from his past to up his shields, look closely, more carefully, before letting anyone in. But when he joined Mutant X he had stopped dropping his shields altogether, rather, the shields transforming into a façade that he almost wore like second skin. So close are its colors and contours to the real that people around him, with the slight exception of Shalimar and maybe, even Adam, could not tell the difference anymore.

One bullet, and then another. First, collision, and then, warmth. So much warmth.

Strangely, that was exactly how it was like when he met her. And he knew, at that moment, it was his time to fall.

*******************

He knew she could feel the urge in him to follow her, after she developed a sudden headache after seeing Brennan and Shalimar wrapped into each other like twisted, velvet scarves, chafing into each other with so much friction that its heat pierced him. It was like that very first bullet that landed on his hardened body, drilling into him with so much warmth it tickled.

But he stayed, instead, letting Brennan follow her in his place. She didn't need him, he knew, didn't need any of them, for it was obvious that if there was one thing she needed, it was the need to be left alone. But there was this one aspect of their personalities that bound them all together: the need to make everything better. To stop the pain. Kill the fear. Crush the tormentors. Liberate them all.

It was that aspect, if tripled, could either comfort, or hurt. It was a very thin line, and most usually, the result went more for the latter.

He sighed and tried to ignore the dark eyes that were boring onto the side of his head. Boring so insistently that he almost felt the need to mass. But he would never do that, never to Shalimar. It was only with her that he would let his shields down entirely and although he never gave everything inside of him away, he would always leave the slightest of what he could give to her.

He didn't know if he should hate himself for that slight state of vulnerability he always found himself in with her, or should he hate her with a vengeance for seemingly misplacing the trust he had given her with wanton abandon. He didn't think it over, because he knew, deep inside, that he could never do it. He could never hate her.

Finally, she cleared her throat, and spoke first. It was tradition. "What are you doing here, Jess?"  


Honestly, he didn't know. He wanted to ask her why she couldn't look at him straight in the eye whenever she was around Brennan, why she had gotten so weak all of a sudden, and why she never gave him that look, that special look they always exchanged whenever they felt like no one was looking. He wanted to scream at her, tell her how disgusted he was of her. Ask if he was still the most important man in her life next to Adam, as she would always be the most important woman in his life, next to no one.

He wanted to know why he felt like he knew the answers to all his questions already, and why that knowledge made him feel like the bones in his heart was slowly breaking, one by one.

*******************

He was searching the internet one evening, not really sure of what he was looking for, and why he was looking in the first place. The internet was a vast maze wherein everything needed a special key to be found, and it was the perfect place for deceit and make-believe, the perfect place for someone like him.

He felt the hand clamping onto the back of the leather seat and knew, instantly, who it was. He felt his jaw line immediately contract, and made his voice whistle between his teeth. "Hey."

If Brennan noticed the heightened tension in his muscles he didn't say anything. But then he was never the type to express whatever was bothering him, not to him. If ever, he had to intensify his façade around Brennan, for it was him who seemed the most interested of exposing him for what he really is. Not that Brennan took joy into deliberately hurting him, except that he was a man who hated pretense, everything that made him what he is. It was strange, when he first saw him, he always thought that he was in hiding, himself. But it was after a few days that he realized that Brennan didn't hide willingly, he just made it seem like he was. It was in his direct overconfidence and protectiveness that he found out.

"Hey," Brennan answered. He was silent for a while, but eventually spoke. He cleared his throat first, though, like he had the words, but he didn't want to let them out.

He wished his problem was that simple.

Brennan cleared his throat again. "About me and Shalimar…"

He didn't want to hear it. "Brennan, no." What to do, what to do. Ah. Check e-mail.

"I know you don't understand what's going on between me and her," he continued. He paused, checking if he had his full attention.

Username. Password. Oops, typed too many letter P's, there's only one.

With a sigh of frustration Brennan pushed his shoulder roughly away from the console and shut the monitor off, before settling back with his arms on the headrest of the chair. "…and I felt like I should tell straighten things out with you myself."

He felt something inside him flash. He didn't know if it was because of Brennan's lack of tact or the fact that he was hearing what he would inevitably find out from him, not from her. Hurt from Shalimar's dishonesty and inability to tell him the truth herself made his blood run cold. He maxed his shields into overdrive. "I said, no, Brennan." He let his gaze cool to the lowest temperature it could possibly go into and ran it on Brennan's face. "I don't need to hear this. Not from you."

Brennan purposely didn't take the hint and threw his hands into the air. "I always thought that you and Shalimar were like brother or sister, man," he protested. "I didn't mean-"

"We are," he answered quietly, the realization of Shalimar's betrayal and severing of all ties coalesced into a heat fiercer than burning. "We were."

*******************

He had found her late that night, deep blue eyes reflecting over the waters in the private confines of the Sanctuary. Her dark brown hair was limp, its innate ability to defy gravity, gone.

He wanted to do so many things, say so many words, anything to make her feel better. He could feel her eyes molding into the water, seemingly memorizing all its qualities. In return, the water, in its own pretense of serenity, sparkled, its reflection dancing onto the deep blue of her eyes.

The naked eye, he always knew, like water, was a chameleon, easily hiding from intruders through the slightest of facades. It didn't take him long to master the chameleon's art of hiding. Adam once said that their powers were reflective of their being. If Emma's mirrored her ability to feel, too much, everything people wanted to hide from the rest of the world, including themselves; his echoed his nature to conceal his thoughts and everything that he is deep into a protected chamber that can never be touched.

For the past few days, without knowing it, Emma had stolen the chameleon's skin and hoped to cover her own, but she was inexperienced in the craft of pretense and had worn the skin backwards, causing everyone to see through the pain she tried with all of her power to hide. Despite the frozen smile she gave him as he approached her side. Despite the spark in her voice as she mumbled a greeting.

He could feel eyes tinged with the deepest colors of the ocean hesitating, yet inevitably plunging into the depths of his head. Normally he would push her away but he could feel her pain so badly that he wanted her to feel his own.

He felt her shake her head, fingers flying to her forehead to massage her temples, the images in his mind so fast, attacking her like a dozen bullets aimed to pierce the heart.

He have mastered the art of hiding so much that he knew just how to lower the gates to the smallest of fractions, to leave the slightest clue of what was hiding underneath. Emma pushed the gates down and forced herself in.

She once told him that she had the gift of connecting the various images in a person's mind allowed her to piece together a coherent emotion and feeling. He gave her that freedom, after all that she had been through, he felt like she needed it, that freedom, that indescribable feeling of control.

He wanted to do so many things, say so many words. Yet he didn't know how. With a deep sigh, he looked at her slightly, not wanting to betray his thoughts through his face despite its futility, because his thoughts, she had already understood. He felt her mind humming silently inside his, hard at work. When she finally pieced them together, he felt an epiphany blaze into her mind, clear, yet as imperfect as a snowflake. A rough breeze that forced its way inside the Sanctuary through an open window threatened to unsettle her thoughts but Emma, with a mind bearing the strength that belied all dangers told it to keep its distance.

He watched her out of the corner of his eye. She was staring silently into space. He sometimes envied her power, with its ability to crumble all facades and eliminate all needs for pretense yet he felt no need for it now, because everything she felt, like everything he had just imparted to her through the chaos in his mind, was so agonizingly clear that he could practically see the image of a man whose unconditional love she wanted so badly floating in front of her. And he knew she could see it clearly also, the face of the woman he had trusted and loved more than anything in the world, slowly slipping away from him, despite how tightly he held on.

Emma let out a deep, ragged sigh, her breath fusing into the air to become an element that can be seen yet not touched. When she finally spoke, she transformed the tumult of thoughts in his head into the tangible, dreadful finality of words. "Isn't it tragic, to have so much love to give, yet no one to seemingly want it?"

He didn't know. He didn't know what to say anymore. The final syllable of her words came out in a hiss and the raggedness of her breathing echoed his own as it forced itself out of the slowly tightening feeling in his chest. Finally his breath came out like a choke, and he realized, this is how it must feel like to get shot by a bullet; your chest on fire, your breath in short gasps. He felt his life slipping away from him the way Shalimar's hand did, earlier, his shields, the very wall separating him from the dark-haired girl on his side, fading.

And fading.

****THE END****  
  



End file.
